The History of Television

Alexander Bain and the first image-sending patent (1843) (Patent dated 27 May 1843)

Alexander Bain was a clockmaker from Caithness who moved to London in 1837 and spent his life wiring clocks and telegraphs together. His patent dated 27 May 1843 described a machine that scanned a message line by line and rebuilt it at the far end, which is the core idea of every fax and every television picture since. Bain worked on the machine until 1846. It never worked well in practice, because he could not keep the sending and receiving ends truly in step.

How they rose: Apprenticed to a clockmaker in Wick, he patented an electric clock in January 1841 that kept its pendulum swinging with electromagnetic pulses. The same timing problem, two machines moving in step at a distance, led him to the image telegraph.

How they died: He lost much of his money in bad investments and lived on a small Civil List pension from 1873, arranged by supporters including William Thomson (Lord Kelvin). He died in Kirkintilloch on 2 January 1877.

• Bain's chemical telegraph of 1846 marked damp, chemically treated paper with each electrical pulse; a Paris-Lille trial sent 282 words in 52 seconds.
• The Science Museum Group credits Bain as the originator of the perforated paper tape later used across telegraphy.
• In 2016, more than a century after his death, Bain was given a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for his work on image transmission.

Try it yourself: A modern fax machine, still built on Bain's idea of scanning a page line by line (Brother plain paper fax machine on Amazon)

Sources: Science Museum Group: Bain's chemical telegraph, 1850 (object 1888-198); Science Museum Group: Alexander Bain, people record; Wikipedia: Alexander Bain (inventor)

Caselli's pantelegraph (1860s) (Paris-Lyon service 1865-1870)

Giovanni Caselli, a physics teacher in Florence, built a machine that sent drawings and handwriting over ordinary telegraph wires. A message was written in insulating ink on a metal plate; a stylus swept across it line by line, and a matching stylus at the far end marked chemically treated paper wherever current flowed. A heavy pendulum kept the two ends in step, solving the problem that defeated Bain. It is the first image-transmission system known to have run as a public commercial service.

How it was made: Caselli moved to Paris, where the instrument maker Paul-Gustave Froment helped him build it. Napoleon III visited the workshop in 1860 and arranged access to the state telegraph lines; the first 'pantelegram' went from Lyon to Paris on 10 February 1862.

Where it is now: French law accepted the system in 1864 and official Paris-Lyon service began in 1865, reaching Marseille in 1867. The service ended in 1870, and the pantelegraph survives in museums and in the history of the fax.

• Its most common use was checking signatures on banking transactions, an early form of remote identity verification.
• In 1860 a test line between Paris and Amiens carried Gioachino Rossini's signature about 140 km; the composer then wrote a short piano piece for the 'pantelegrafo'.
• The synchronizing pendulum weighed about 8 kg and hung from a frame about 2 m tall, and one sheet of about 25 handwritten words took 108 seconds to send.

Sources: Google Patents: US 37,563, G. Caselli, telegraphic apparatus (3 February 1863); HFFax history: Caselli's Pantelegraph; Wikipedia: Pantelegraph

Selenium reacts to light (1873) (Reported February 1873)

Willoughby Smith was testing undersea telegraph cable and needed a very high resistance at the shore end. He tried rods of crystalline selenium and found their readings would not stay put: a piece could show half its night-time resistance in the morning. The cause was light. His report to the Society of Telegraph Engineers on 12 February 1873, summarised in Nature on 20 February, gave inventors their first material that turned light into an electrical signal, and within a few years people were sketching machines to 'see by electricity'.

• Smith later wrote that he kept using selenium resistors anyway, sealed in paraffin wax in vulcanite boxes, because nothing else was as cheap and compact.
• In 1881 Shelford Bidwell built a model apparatus using selenium cells to send pictures by telegraph; it is now in the Science Museum Group collection.
• In 2017 the discovery received a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award, given to three organizations because the Emmy cannot go to a person who has died.

Sources: Willoughby Smith, The Rise and Extension of Submarine Telegraphy (1891), Internet Archive; Science Museum Group: Bidwell's selenium cells and picture-telegraph model, 1881; Wikipedia: Willoughby Smith

Seeing by electricity: the telephonoscope dream (1877-1883) (Punch, 9 December 1878)

Soon after the telephone and the selenium cell, writers and artists began imagining a device that would carry pictures as well as sound. George du Maurier's cartoon 'Edison's Telephonoscope (transmits light as well as sound)' ran in Punch's Almanack for 1879, dated 9 December 1878: a father in Wilton Place, London, chats with his daughter Beatrice, who is in Ceylon. In France, Albert Robida's novel Le Vingtième Siècle (1883) imagined a téléphonoscope set into the wall that piped theatre into homes. In Boston, Scientific American reported the surveyor George Carey's designs for selenium-cell 'seeing' machines in 1878 and 1880.

• Scientific American's article of 5 June 1880 described two of Carey's schemes: one exposed photographic paper through an array of selenium cells, the other lit a bank of many separate lamps.
• A French journalist, Abraham Dreyfus, used the word téléphonoscope in La Vie moderne on 22 November 1879, three years before Robida's novel, though his device carried only sound.
• In Robida's fiction, a theatre-subscription company had more than 600,000 subscribers, a fair guess at the business model of pay television.

Try it yourself: Robida's 1883 novel of a wired future, téléphonoscope included (Albert Robida The Twentieth Century novel English translation on Amazon)

Sources: Wikimedia Commons: du Maurier, 'Edison's Telephonoscope', Punch Almanack for 1879; Terramedia Chronomedia: Edison's Telephonoscope cartoon; Histoire de la télévision (A. Lange): Albert Robida; Histoire de la télévision (A. Lange): Abraham Dreyfus and the téléphonoscope, 1879; Wikipedia: George R. Carey

Nipkow's scanning disk, German patent 30105 (1884) (Patent effective 6 January 1884, granted 15 January 1885)

Paul Nipkow's 'electric telescope' was a disk punched with holes in a single spiral. As it spun, each hole swept one line across the picture, so a light sensor behind it saw the scene one line at a time; a matching disk at the far end rebuilt it. The number of holes set the number of lines; the mechanical sets of the 1920s and early 30s usually showed 30 to 60. It was the foundation of mechanical television: John Logie Baird's 1926 demonstration used the same principle. Whether you call this 'the first television' depends on definition, because Nipkow had only a patent, not a working machine.

How it was made: Nipkow, born 22 August 1860, later told the story that the idea came to him on Christmas Eve 1883, while he was a student sitting alone at home by an oil lamp. The German patent, No. 30105, was granted on 15 January 1885 with effect from 6 January 1884.

Where it is now: He seems never to have built the device, let the patent lapse after 15 years, and worked as an engineer at a railway-signal firm in Berlin. The Nazi state later made him a figurehead; he died in Berlin on 24 August 1940, and the 1935 Berlin TV service bore his name.

• The Science Museum Group holds a copy of German patent specification No. 30105, deposited by the German Patent Office.
• An English-language report, 'Seeing by Electricity', described his device in The Electrical World of New York on 14 November 1885.
• Baird's standard 30-line disk spun 12.5 times a second, giving 12.5 pictures a second, each lit by a neon lamp behind the disk.

Try it yourself: Tube: The Invention of Television, the story from Nipkow's disk to the picture tube (Tube The Invention of Television Fisher book on Amazon)

Sources: Google Patents: DE 30105 C, P. Nipkow, Elektrisches Teleskop (filed 6 Jan 1884, published 15 Jan 1885); Science Museum Group: copy of German patent No. 30105, perforated scanning disc; Histoire de la télévision: 'Seeing by Electricity', The Electrical World, 14 Nov 1885; Early Television Museum: Mechanical TV history; Early Television Museum: How mechanical TV works; Wikipedia: Paul Gottlieb Nipkow

The word 'television' is coined (Paris, 1900) (24 August 1900)

Constantin Perskyi, who taught electricity at the Artillery Academy in St Petersburg, read a paper called 'Télévision au moyen de l'électricité' at the International Congress of Electricity, held during the Paris Exposition Universelle. It surveyed schemes for sending pictures by wire, discussed selenium as the most light-sensitive material known, and cited Nipkow. The talk was given on Friday 24 August 1900, and the word stuck. The text was printed in the congress proceedings (Gauthier-Villars, 1901).

• Perskyi spelled the German inventor's name 'Nipkoff' in his paper.
• He noted that selenium's conductivity rises roughly with the square root of light intensity, an early attempt to quantify the 'electric eye'.
• Perskyi fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 and spent most of his career on artillery equipment, not pictures.

Sources: Histoire de la télévision: Perskyi, 'Télévision au moyen de l'électricité' (proceedings text, 1901); Histoire de la télévision (A. Lange): Perskyi and the word 'télévision'; Wikipedia: Constantin Perskyi

Boris Rosing and the first CRT picture receiver (1907-1911) (Patents 1907; demonstration reported 1911)

Boris Rosing combined a mechanical camera of spinning mirrors with a Braun cathode-ray tube as the receiver, so the picture was painted by an electron beam rather than a spinning disk. He filed patents in Russia, Germany and Britain in 1907 and an improved design in 1911. On 9 May 1911 he showed the Russian Technical Society a picture of four bars on the tube's small screen. The images were crude, but the receiving half of his system was the direction television would take.

How they rose: Born in St Petersburg on 5 May 1869, he studied physics and mathematics at St Petersburg University and taught at the city's Institute of Technology. The young Vladimir Zworykin was his pupil and helped in his laboratory, and Rosing's tube-based receiver pointed the way Zworykin would follow.

How they died: In 1931 the Soviet state exiled him as a 'counter-revolutionary' to Kotlas; moved to Arkhangelsk in 1932, he died there of a cerebral haemorrhage on 20 April 1933.

• His Russian patent No. 18,076 was filed on 25 July 1907, followed by German and British filings in November and December 1907.
• His US patent, 'Art of electric telescopy' (No. 1,161,734), was filed on 5 April 1911 and granted on 23 November 1915.
• In the patent, rotating polyhedral mirrors scanned the scene point by point onto a photoelectric cell, while a cathode-ray tube rebuilt it at the receiver.

Sources: Google Patents: US 1,161,734, B. Rosing, Art of electric telescopy; ETHW (IEEE): Vladimir Zworykin, Rosing's pupil; ITU News: Russian college honours TV innovator Boris Rosing (27 October 2021); Wikipedia: Boris Rosing

Campbell Swinton's 'Distant Electric Vision' (1908) (Nature, 18 June 1908)

Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton proposed using a cathode-ray beam to scan the scene at the camera as well as to paint it on the screen, the two beams kept in step by electromagnets fed with alternating currents of different frequencies. No moving parts at all. He filled in the details in a London speech in 1911 but never patented the idea. It is a near-exact description of how electronic television would work from the 1930s on.

• Swinton made the first X-ray photograph in England in 1896, published in Nature within a month of Röntgen's announcement.
• In the 1920s he opposed the BBC adopting Baird's mechanical system, arguing that only electronic scanning could deliver real television.
• He also worked with Charles Parsons on early steam turbines and the record-breaking ship Turbinia.

Sources: Zenodo: A. A. Campbell Swinton, 'Distant Electric Vision' (Nature, 18 June 1908); Science Museum Group: Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton, people record; Wikipedia: Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton

Zworykin's iconoscope camera tube (1923-1933) (Patent filed 29 Dec 1923; prototype 9 Nov 1931; unveiled June 1933)

The iconoscope replaced spinning disks with an electron beam scanning a light-sensitive mosaic inside a vacuum tube. Because each spot of the mosaic stored charge between scans, it was far more sensitive than Farnsworth's image dissector and could work in ordinary studio light. RCA unveiled it at a press conference in June 1933, and it was RCA's main broadcast camera tube from 1936 until 1946. Its British cousin, EMI's Emitron, made the BBC's 1936 service possible.

How it was made: Vladimir Zworykin, Rosing's former pupil, filed a television patent at Westinghouse on 29 December 1923, then moved to RCA in 1929 with David Sarnoff's backing. A practical mosaic arrived in 1931 when a silvered mica sheet left too long in an oven broke into tiny isolated silver globules.

Where it is now: The image orthicon replaced it from 1946. Zworykin died in Princeton, New Jersey, on 29 July 1982.

• The Science Museum Group holds a prototype iconoscope Zworykin made in his laboratory on 9 November 1931 and tested successfully the next day.
• Hungarian engineer Kálmán Tihanyi filed a patent on the charge-storage principle in March 1926, and historians credit him with the idea the iconoscope relied on.
• Zworykin's 1923 patent, US 2,141,059, was finally issued on 20 December 1938, 15 years after filing.

Sources: Google Patents: US 2,141,059, V. K. Zworykin, Television system (filed 1923); Science Museum Group: Prototype iconoscope tube, 9 November 1931; ETHW (IEEE): Vladimir Zworykin; Early Television Museum: Early electronic TV history; Wikipedia: Video camera tube

John Logie Baird's first public television, 22 Frith Street (26 January 1926) (26 January 1926, Soho, London)

On 26 January 1926 John Logie Baird gave members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times a demonstration of live moving television in his first-floor workshop at 22 Frith Street, Soho. His system was mechanical: spinning disks with 30 holes scanned the subject and rebuilt the picture behind a neon lamp, at first five pictures a second. The Times reported it on 28 January. It is usually called the first public demonstration of television; earlier milestones depend on definition, including his own silhouette shows at Selfridges from 25 March 1925 and his first greyscale image of a dummy head on 2 October 1925.

How they rose: Born in Helensburgh, Scotland, on 13 August 1888, he began experimenting in Hastings in 1923 with scrap materials, survived a 1,000-volt shock in July 1924, and moved to London. On 2 October 1925 he transmitted 'Stooky Bill', a ventriloquist's dummy, in 32 lines at five pictures a second.

How they died: The BBC carried his 30-line system from 1929 but dropped his 240-line system in favour of Marconi-EMI's electronic 405 lines in early 1937. He kept working on colour and high-definition TV, had a stroke in February 1946, and died at home in Bexhill-on-Sea on 14 June 1946.

• The receiver Baird used that day, with its 30-hole spiral disc and neon lamp, is in the Science Museum's Information Age gallery in London.
• An IEEE Milestone plaque, dedicated on 26 January 2017, is fixed to the front of 22 Frith Street, above and to the right of the Bar Italia doorway.
• Baird also tried recording television on gramophone discs (Phonovision, 1926-28) and demonstrated colour television on 3 July 1928.

Try it yourself: A retro TV-style speaker, a nod to the boxy sets that followed Baird (retro TV shaped Bluetooth speaker on Amazon)

Sources: Science Museum Group: Experimental receiver used by J. L. Baird, 1925-26 (object 1931-57); Google Patents: US 2,006,124, J. L. Baird, Television apparatus (priority 20 Jan 1926); ETHW (IEEE): Milestone, First Public Demonstration of Television, 1926; Science Museum Group: John Logie Baird, people record; Wikipedia: John Logie Baird

Kenjiro Takayanagi's 'i' on a cathode-ray tube (Hamamatsu, 25 December 1926) (25 December 1926, Hamamatsu)

Kenjiro Takayanagi, an assistant professor at Hamamatsu Higher Technical School, scanned the character イ (i) with a Nipkow disk and displayed it, in about 40 lines, on a cathode-ray tube. That made his receiver electronic months before Farnsworth's all-electronic camera worked, which is why 'the first television' depends on whether you mean the camera, the screen, or both. He went on to build an all-electronic system with his own iconoscope in 1935 and is called the father of Japanese television.

How they rose: Born in Hamamatsu in 1899, he began television research in 1924 at the newly founded Hamamatsu Higher Technical School. In 1930 he showed clearer pictures to Emperor Shōwa.

How they died: The war stopped Japanese television work in 1941, and he spent it on radar for the navy. He joined JVC (Victor Company of Japan) in 1946, later becoming vice-president, and died in 1990.

• He planned TV relays for the 1940 Tokyo Olympics, which were cancelled because of the war.
• When NHK began regular television in 1953, it signed up 866 receiving contracts in its first year.
• His 1926 work became an IEEE Milestone in 2009; the plaque stands beside his statue at Shizuoka University's Research Institute of Electronics.

Sources: National Diet Library: Musen Kogaku Koza vol. 2 (1933), chapter 'Television' by Takayanagi; ETHW (IEEE): Milestone, Development of Electronic Television, 1924-1941; Institute of Science Tokyo: Kenjiro Takayanagi; Nippon.com: Takayanagi Kenjirō, father of Japanese television; Wikipedia: Kenjiro Takayanagi

Philo Farnsworth's image dissector: the first all-electronic picture (7 September 1927) (7 September 1927, 202 Green Street, San Francisco)

On 7 September 1927 Philo T. Farnsworth's image dissector sent a simple straight line to a receiver in another room of his laboratory at 202 Green Street, San Francisco. The tube focused the scene onto a plate coated with caesium oxide, which gave off electrons where light struck; magnetic fields swept that 'electron image' past a small aperture, line by line. Nothing spun. That makes it the first all-electronic television transmission, as opposed to Baird's mechanical system of 1926. His wife later recalled him saying, 'There you are, electronic television!'

How it was made: Farnsworth had turned 21 that August. He filed the patent on 7 January 1927; the scanning idea, he said, came from ploughing a field in rows, and he sketched it for his high-school chemistry teacher Justin Tolman in spring 1922.

Where it is now: The tube needed very bright light, so RCA's charge-storing iconoscope won the broadcast market. Farnsworth died of pneumonia in Holladay, Utah, on 11 March 1971.

• RCA challenged his patent; Farnsworth won, partly on Tolman's memory of the 1922 blackboard sketch, and in September 1939 RCA agreed to license it for a total of $1 million.
• He first showed his system to the public at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on 25 August 1934.
• On 3 July 1957 he appeared as 'Doctor X' on CBS's I've Got a Secret; the panel failed to guess that he had invented electronic television, and he won $80 and a carton of cigarettes.

Try it yourself: Evan Schwartz's account of Farnsworth's fight with RCA (The Last Lone Inventor Philo Farnsworth book on Amazon)

Sources: Google Patents: US 1,773,980, P. T. Farnsworth, Television system (filed 7 Jan 1927); Science Museum Group: Farnsworth image dissector tube, 1927 (object 1937-672); ETHW (IEEE): Farnsworth's Image Dissector; Wikipedia: Philo Farnsworth

Television crosses the Atlantic (8-9 February 1928) (8-9 February 1928)

Baird's company sent 30-line pictures from London by land line to its shortwave transmitter 2KZ at Coulsdon, Surrey, and across the ocean to amateur station 2CVJ, owned by R. M. Hart in Hartsdale, New York. Baird's managing director, Captain O. G. Hutchinson, watched at the receiving end. The New York Times reported on 9 February that the images were crude, imperfect and broken but still images, a man's face and a woman's face seen full-on and then in profile. Sources split between 8 and 9 February because of the time difference and when reports were filed.

• The signal crossed the ocean as a rhythmic buzzing sound that carried the light and shade of the faces.
• The woman seen in New York is named in later accounts as Mrs Mia Howe.
• The first image sent is said to have been Stooky Bill, Baird's ventriloquist's dummy.

Sources: Baird Television archive: New York Times report of 9 February 1928, reproduced; Guinness World Records: First transatlantic TV transmission; MZTV Museum of Television: First cross-Atlantic transmission; Wikipedia: John Logie Baird

GE's Schenectady TV station and the first TV drama (1928) (Station from January 1928; drama 11 September 1928)

In January 1928 General Electric began experimental television from Schenectady, New York, under Ernst Alexanderson, at first with 24 lines and soon 48. On 11 September 1928 it broadcast J. Hartley Manners's play The Queen's Messenger, billed as the first television drama, using three cameras: two on the actors' faces and one on their hands and props. Home screens were about three inches across. It was one of about 25 US mechanical stations on the air by 1931; almost all were gone by 1933.

How it began: Alexanderson, GE's radio pioneer, demonstrated his system in late 1927, and the station shared the identity of GE's radio station WGY.

What became of it: The station went electronic in 1939, linked up with NBC's New York station in one of the first TV networks, and became WRGB, a commercial station from 26 February 1942 that is still on the air.

• The play ran about 40 minutes; director Mortimer Stewart watched a monitor to check what viewers were getting.
• Mechanical TV broadcasts were so distinctive on the air that people could identify them by ear.
• The New York Herald Tribune of 11 September 1928 wondered whether the play would be 'successfully received at any point'.

Try it yourself: An over-the-air antenna, for free broadcast TV that still starts at a transmitter like Schenectady's (OTA HD TV antenna indoor on Amazon)

Sources: Early Television Museum: The Queen's Messenger, with 1928 Herald Tribune excerpt; Early Television Museum: W2XB / WGY / WRGB; Early Television Museum: American mechanical TV stations; Early Television Museum: Mechanical TV history (about 25 US stations by 1931); Wikipedia: The Queen's Messenger; Wikipedia: WRGB

The Berlin Olympics on television (August 1936) (From 1 August 1936)

Germany's Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow had started regular broadcasts in Berlin on 22 March 1935. For the Olympics it put up to eight hours a day of live pictures into public viewing rooms, from the opening ceremony on 1 August 1936. A 1936 trade magazine counted 25 public viewing rooms, the largest holding about 300 people; the Bundesarchiv counts 27, and only about 50 to 75 households owned a set. The pictures had 180 lines. Two rival electronic cameras were used: Telefunken's, based on Zworykin's iconoscope, and Fernseh AG's, based on Farnsworth's dissector.

• Fitted with long lenses almost 40 cm across, the cameras looked so much like guns that Funkschau compared them to a long-range cannon.
• Nearly 1,000 people watched the opening ceremony in the viewing rooms; estimates for the whole Games run above 150,000.
• After 1990 about 280 rolls of 35 mm film of the station's programmes were found.

Sources: Funkschau No. 35, 30 August 1936, 'Fernsehen macht einen Riesenschritt vorwärts' (worldradiohistory.com); Bundesarchiv: The 1936 Olympics in radio, television and film; German History in Intersections: Television camera at the Berlin Olympics; Wikipedia: Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow

Alexandra Palace, the BBC's television station (opened 2 November 1936) (Opened 2 November 1936)

The BBC leased the east wing of Alexandra Palace in 1935 and built two studios: one for Baird's 240-line system and one for Marconi-EMI's 405-line electronic system using the Emitron camera. The service opened on 2 November 1936, alternating the two systems week by week. On 5 February 1937 the Postmaster General announced a single standard, 405 lines, interlaced, 25 complete pictures (50 interlaced fields) a second, which became Britain's standard. By 1938 the station offered about two and a half hours of live programmes each weekday.

How it began: Baird won the coin toss to go first, so the opening ceremony was performed twice, once in each studio.

What became of it: Television stopped on 1 September 1939 and returned on 7 June 1946. Some production moved to Lime Grove after the war and the BBC left the palace in 1969; the Open University then used the studios until 1980.

• A second standard of 625 lines arrived in 1964, and over the following years the old 405-line service was phased out.
• The BBC's 1938 Year Book says Mickey Mouse and other cartoons were frequently shown, along with ballet, opera and fashion parades.
• Test transmissions began in August 1936 to coincide with the Radiolympia radio show.

Try it yourself: A retro-styled portable set with the look of the 1930s and 40s (vintage style portable TV retro on Amazon)

Sources: BBC Year Book 1938, 'Television To-day' (worldradiohistory.com); Alexandra Palace: The BBC at Alexandra Palace; National Science and Media Museum blog: 80 years since the opening of the British television service; Early Television Museum: Postwar British television (625 lines from 1964); Wikipedia: BBC Television Service

The coronation procession on television (12 May 1937) (12 May 1937, Hyde Park Corner)

The BBC had just bought a mobile television unit from Marconi-EMI, and on Coronation Day it televised the royal procession as it passed Apsley Gate, Hyde Park Corner, on the way back from Westminster Abbey. Two cameras on a plinth gave wide views and a third, at pavement level, gave close-ups of the King and Queen. The ceremony inside the Abbey was not televised. The BBC estimated more than 10,000 people saw it; other estimates ran as high as 50,000, at a time when there were only about 1,000 sets.

• In central London the camera signals reached Alexandra Palace over a special Post Office television cable rather than by radio.
• A magazine columnist watching 15 miles away noted 'a certain amount of dullness due to the bad light', and nearby newsreel cameramen had to stop for lack of light.
• That night the Poet Laureate, John Masefield, read his Coronation Ode in the television studio.

Sources: BBC Year Book 1938, 'Televising the Coronation Procession' (worldradiohistory.com); British Vintage Wireless Society, The Valve Page: TV in 1937; Wikipedia: Coronation of George VI and Elizabeth

RCA and NBC launch regular TV at the New York World's Fair (30 April 1939) (30 April 1939)

NBC began its regular television service with a three-and-a-half-hour telecast of the World's Fair opening on 30 April 1939, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech, over experimental station W2XBS. Broadcasting magazine noted that only a 'handful' of New Yorkers owned receivers, so most people saw it at the fair. RCA's pavilion had a Hall of Television with 13 stock sets, and RCA also showed a see-through 'Phantom Teleceiver' made of Lucite. The network then planned about 25 hours of programmes a week.

• RCA's David Sarnoff was televised dedicating the RCA building at the fair, watched on receivers at Radio City eight miles away.
• RCA's top model, the TRK-12, cost $600, more than a modest car, and had a 12-inch tube standing upright and seen in a mirror in the lid; 1,779 were made.
• Beside the 13 stock sets, the Hall of Television showed a laboratory projection receiver that threw pictures onto a screen 6 by 10 feet.

Sources: Broadcasting, 1 May 1939, 'Television Motif Marks New York Fair' (worldradiohistory.com); Early Television Museum: RCA TRK-12; NTIA Institute for Telecommunication Sciences: April 1939; MZTV Museum of Television: 1939 World's Fair

BBC television goes dark for the war (1 September 1939) (1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946)

On Friday 1 September 1939, two days before Britain declared war, the BBC announced that the television service would be discontinued until further notice. The last programme was the Mickey Mouse cartoon Mickey's Gala Premier, followed by test transmissions. About 19,000 sets had been made in Britain since 1936; they sat dark until 7 June 1946.

• The popular memory that the cartoon was cut off mid-scene is wrong: it played through to the end before test transmissions.
• When television returned on 7 June 1946, announcer Jasmine Bligh opened with 'Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh?'
• The same Mickey Mouse cartoon was shown again about twenty minutes after the 1946 reopening.

Sources: Wireless World, September 1939 (issue of 7 September), BBC announcement (worldradiohistory.com); Alexandra Palace: The BBC at Alexandra Palace; CST Online (Critical Studies in Television): Jonathan Bignell, When Television Stopped, 1939-46 (2021); Wikipedia: BBC Television Service

The 525-line NTSC standard (FCC approval, May 1941) (Announced 2 May 1941; commercial TV from 1 July 1941)

The FCC set up the National Television System Committee in 1940 to end a fight between RCA, which already broadcast 441 lines, and rivals such as Philco and DuMont, who wanted more. At hearings in March 1941 the committee recommended 525 lines instead of 441. On Friday 2 May 1941 the FCC adopted the standard: 525 lines, 30 frames a second interlaced (two fields of 262.5 lines, 60 fields a second), with AM picture and FM sound, and full commercial television from 1 July 1941. The line count survived the switch to colour and lasted until analogue US broadcasting ended in 2009.

• Interlacing draws the odd lines, then the even lines, so the screen refreshes 60 times a second without needing double the bandwidth.
• The FCC called the standards a six-month practical test, partly because commissioners were interested in CBS's colour system, first demonstrated in August 1940.
• After strong objections at the March hearings, the FCC set a minimum of 15 hours of programmes a week, half the 30 hours it had first proposed.

Sources: Broadcasting, 5 May 1941, 'Television Authorized by FCC on a Full Commercial Basis' (worldradiohistory.com); Countdown to the Centennial (P. Schatzkin): #92, Standards; Wikipedia: NTSC

The postwar TV boom and the FCC freeze (1948-1952) (30 September 1948 to 14 April 1952)

After the war, cheaper tubes and bigger screens met a country with money to spend. About 44,000 US homes had TV at the end of 1946 and 4.2 million at the end of 1949. Stations crowded the 12 VHF channels and began interfering with each other, so on 30 September 1948 the FCC stopped granting new station licences. The Sixth Report and Order, adopted 11 April and released 14 April 1952, lifted the freeze, opened 70 UHF channels (14 to 83) and reserved channels for non-commercial educational stations.

• The freeze left about 420 proposed new stations waiting.
• By 1952 there were more than 17 million VHF-only receivers in the US, which made life hard for the new UHF stations.
• Half of American homes had television by 1953.

Sources: Broadcasting, 14 April 1952, Part II: full text of the FCC Sixth Report and Order (worldradiohistory.com); TV Technology: Fifty Years of UHF TV; Early Television Museum: Postwar American television

Coast-to-coast TV and I Love Lucy (1951) (Network opened 4 September 1951; Lucy premiered 15 October 1951)

AT&T had been building coaxial-cable and microwave links between cities since the late 1940s. On Tuesday 4 September 1951 its new transcontinental microwave network opened with President Truman's address to the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco, carried live by 94 of the country's 107 stations. Six weeks later, on 15 October, CBS premiered I Love Lucy, filmed on 35 mm with three cameras in front of a studio audience. Live shows reached distant viewers only as blurry kinescope films, so filming gave every market the same sharp picture, and created reruns.

• Trendex estimated 14.67 million people watched Truman open the conference, out of a potential audience of nearly 40 million.
• Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz took a $1,000-a-week pay cut to cover the cost of filming and kept 80 percent ownership of the films.
• 'Lucy Goes to the Hospital' on 19 January 1953 drew a 71.7 rating, about 44 million viewers.

Try it yourself: The filmed episodes that made reruns possible (I Love Lucy complete series DVD on Amazon)

Sources: Broadcasting, 10 September 1951, 'Coast-to-Coast TV Opened to 40 Million' (worldradiohistory.com); Early Television Museum: Postwar American television; Wikipedia: I Love Lucy

Compatible colour: NTSC colour (1953) and the RCA CT-100 (1954) (FCC approval 17 December 1953; CT-100 April 1954)

The FCC first approved CBS's colour system in October 1950, but it was incompatible with every existing set. RCA spent years on a system that slipped colour into the black-and-white signal on a 3.579545 MHz subcarrier, and the FCC adopted the NTSC colour standard on 17 December 1953. On 1 January 1954 NBC colourcast the Tournament of Roses Parade over about two dozen stations. RCA's CT-100, on sale from April 1954, had a 15-inch picture tube and 36 vacuum tubes; about 4,400 were made.

How it was made: RCA announced a compatible dot-sequential system on 25 August 1949, and the second National Television System Committee refined it from 1950. Westinghouse beat RCA to market by a few weeks in March 1954 with about 500 sets at $1,295.

Where it is now: The CT-100 flopped: its price fell to $495 by August 1954, and only about 150 survive. Colour sets did not outsell black-and-white in the US until 1970.

• To fit the colour carrier, the frame rate dropped from 30 to about 29.97 per second, a 0.1 percent change that existing sets tolerated.
• Only about 150,000 colour sets had been sold in the US by the end of 1957.
• Engineers joked that NTSC stood for 'Never The Same Color'.

Try it yourself: A modern OLED, where every pixel makes its own colour, 70 years after the CT-100 (LG OLED evo C-series TV on Amazon)

Sources: Broadcasting, 4 January 1954, '23 TV Stations Colorcast Pasadena Roses Parade' (worldradiohistory.com); ETHW (IEEE): Milestone, Monochrome-Compatible Electronic Color Television, 1946-1953; Early Television Museum: RCA CT-100; Early Television Museum: Early colour TV history; Wikipedia: RCA CT-100

Zenith Space Command, the ultrasonic remote (1956) (1956)

Zenith's first remote of 1950 trailed a cable across the floor, and its 1955 Flash-Matic, which aimed a beam of light at photocells in the screen's corners, could be set off by sunlight. Engineer Robert Adler's 1956 Space Command used sound instead. Each button drove a tiny hammer against an aluminium rod cut to give its own ultrasonic pitch, too high for people to hear, and a microphone and filter circuit in the set worked out which function was meant. The buttons made an audible click, and buyers started calling remotes 'clickers'.

How it was made: Adler, a Zenith research engineer, proposed ultrasound after the Flash-Matic's problems; his patent describes filters designed to ignore jingling keys and other stray noises.

Where it is now: Electronics replaced the struck rods, and infrared light took over in the 1980s. Zenith licensed the design to RCA and others and twice won patent suits against Admiral.

• Only about 30,000 Flash-Matics were made, and it added about $100 to a $400 set.
• Zenith said the Space Command increased its TV sales by 40 percent.
• Adler's patent lists muting the sound, switching power and turning the channel motor among the functions.

Try it yourself: A universal remote, the descendant of Adler's clicker (universal remote control TV on Amazon)

Sources: Google Patents: US 2,817,025, R. Adler, Control system (Zenith); Science Museum Group: Zenith Flash-Matic remote control, 1955; The Henry Ford: Zenith 'Space Commander 400' remote control, 1958 (object 2011.49.1); Wikipedia: Zenith Space Command

The Kennedy-Nixon debates (26 September 1960) (26 September 1960, WBBM-TV, Chicago)

On 26 September 1960 Vice-President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy met at CBS's WBBM-TV studio in Chicago, moderated by Howard K. Smith and produced by Don Hewitt. It was the first of four debates and the first series of debates between major-party nominees, made possible when Congress suspended the equal-time rule. Nixon, who later blamed a knee injury for his showing, refused make-up; in black and white his stubble and sweat showed. The Commission on Presidential Debates puts the first debate's audience at 66.4 million.

• Broadcasting magazine reported 'nearly 75 million' watched on combined TV and radio, calling it the largest audience ever for a single programme.
• The third debate was split-screen: Nixon in Los Angeles and Kennedy in New York, joined by ABC.
• No presidential debates followed until 1976, when Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter met in Philadelphia.

Sources: Broadcasting, 3 October 1960, ''Great Debate' Rightly Named' (worldradiohistory.com); Commission on Presidential Debates: 26 September 1960 transcript; Commission on Presidential Debates: 1960 debates (dates, moderators, viewers); National Constitution Center: A brief history of presidential candidate debates; Wikipedia: 1960 United States presidential debates

Telstar carries live TV across the Atlantic (July 1962) (Launched 10 July 1962; public broadcast 23 July 1962)

Telstar 1 was built by Bell Telephone Laboratories for AT&T and launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on 10 July 1962. Within a day the giant horn antenna at Andover, Maine, sent a picture of the American flag to the twin station at Pleumeur-Bodou in France, and French television sent back a taped show with Yves Montand. The first scheduled public transatlantic broadcast, on 23 July 1962, included President Kennedy. Because it orbited low and moved across the sky, AT&T reckoned a full service would need many such satellites.

How it was made: AT&T chose the Andover site in December 1960 and finished the station by spring 1962; its horn antenna was about seven storeys tall under a Dacron dome about 160 feet high.

Where it is now: Radiation from the Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test damaged its electronics: the command channel stopped responding on 23 November 1962, and the transmitter failed for good on 21 February 1963. It is still in orbit.

• Engineers at Andover heard project director Eugene O'Neill announce 'We've acquired Telstar!' before the flag picture went out.
• Broadcasting reported that AT&T thought a full system would need 20 to 40 Telstars; a few high 'synchronous' satellites soon made that unnecessary.
• The Tornados' instrumental 'Telstar', named after the satellite and recorded in Joe Meek's Holloway Road studio in mid-July 1962, came out on 17 August and reached number one; the Science Museum Group holds a copy.

Sources: Broadcasting, 16 July 1962, 'AT&T's Telstar ushers in global TV age' (worldradiohistory.com); ETHW (IEEE): Milestone, First Transatlantic Transmission of a Television Signal via Satellite, 1962; Science Museum Group: Replica of Telstar 1; Science Museum Group: The Tornados, 'Telstar' EP, 1962 (object 2017-129); Wikipedia: Telstar 1

Europe goes colour: PAL and SECAM (1967) (BBC2 July 1967; West Germany 25 August; France 1 October 1967)

Walter Bruch at Telefunken designed PAL (Phase Alternating Line), patented in December 1962 and shown to European broadcasters on 3 January 1963. It reverses the phase of part of the colour signal on every other line, so transmission errors cancel out instead of shifting skin tones, a fix for NTSC's best-known fault. PAL ran on 625 lines at 50 fields a second. Britain's BBC2 began colour in July 1967 and West Germany on 25 August; France launched Henri de France's SECAM on 1 October 1967, and the Soviet Union adopted SECAM too.

• SECAM stands for 'séquentiel couleur à mémoire' (sequential colour with memory) and carries its colour on frequency-modulated subcarriers.
• Early British colour sets had to receive both the old 405-line black-and-white service and new 625-line PAL colour.
• Technicians nicknamed one early British set, the Bush CTV25, 'The Burning Bush' for its habit of catching fire.

Try it yourself: A multi-system player that still has to bridge PAL and NTSC (region free DVD player PAL NTSC on Amazon)

Sources: Science Museum Group: Bush CTV25 dual-standard colour receiver, 1968; Early Television Museum: Postwar British television (625 lines from 1964); Wikipedia: PAL; Wikipedia: SECAM

Sony Trinitron (1968) (Announced April 1968; on sale October 1968)

Most colour tubes used three electron guns and a shadow mask, a metal sheet full of holes that blocked much of the beam. Sony's Trinitron used a single gun with three cathodes and an aperture grille of fine vertical wires, which let more light through and was easier to focus. Masaru Ibuka announced the first model, the 12-inch KV-1210, in April 1968. The Science Museum Group credits it with helping establish Sony, and Japan, as makers of high-quality electronics.

How it was made: Sony's earlier colour tube project, the Chromatron, had drained the company financially. Susumu Yoshida proposed the one-gun, three-cathode design, Senri Miyaoka built the prototype and Akio Ohgoshi suggested the slotted grille; their US patent was filed on 12 January 1968.

Where it is now: Sony's key patent expired in 1996. Production in Japan ended in 2004 and the last Singapore plant closed in March 2008, after about 280 million tubes.

• On many Trinitron screens you can see one or two thin horizontal wires across the picture; they damp vibration in the grille.
• Sony won an Emmy for the Trinitron in 1973.
• By July 1994 Sony had shipped 100 million Trinitron screens.

Try it yourself: Sony's current Bravia line, the successor to the Trinitron (Sony Bravia 4K TV on Amazon)

Sources: Google Patents: US 3,448,316, Yoshida, Ohgoshi, Miyaoka, Katagiri, Cathode ray tube (Sony); Science Museum Group: Sony Trinitron colour television KV-1320UB, 1969-70; Wikipedia: Trinitron

Apollo 11 live from the Moon (20-21 July 1969) (Moonwalk from 10:52 p.m. EDT, 20 July 1969)

A radio link from the Moon could not carry a normal TV signal, so the Westinghouse camera on the lunar module used slow-scan: 320 lines at 10 frames a second. Ground stations at Goldstone in California, Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes in Australia converted it to the US 525-line, 30-frame standard by pointing an ordinary TV camera at a slow-scan monitor, which cost contrast and sharpness. Houston first used Goldstone's picture, which was badly set up and very contrasty, then switched to Honeysuckle Creek just before Armstrong stepped off the ladder. About 125 million people in the US watched the moonwalk.

• Broadcasting counted more than 230 hours of satellite TV time during the mission, beating the 225 hours of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
• Walter Cronkite stayed on CBS for over 17 hours on the night of the landing.
• The original slow-scan tapes were never found; NASA's search team concluded in 2009 that they were probably erased and reused in the early 1980s.

Try it yourself: The 2019 documentary built from restored mission footage (Apollo 11 documentary 2019 Blu-ray on Amazon)

Sources: Broadcasting, 28 July 1969, 'A remote that broke all the records' (worldradiohistory.com); Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station: TV from the Moon; Wikipedia: Apollo TV camera; Wikipedia: Apollo 11 missing tapes

Sesame Street premieres (10 November 1969) (10 November 1969)

Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett began asking in 1966 whether television could help prepare poor children for school. Their Children's Television Workshop built Sesame Street around a written curriculum, designed with Harvard's Gerald Lesser, and tested what children actually learned. It premiered on 10 November 1969 on more than 185 non-commercial stations and a few commercial ones, with Jim Henson's Muppets at its centre. It was the first children's show whose educational effects were formally studied.

• The Children's Television Workshop's total budget was $8 million, from the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the US Office of Education.
• The first international co-productions, Brazil's Vila Sésamo and Mexico's Plaza Sésamo, premiered in 1972.
• By 2022 the show had won 222 Emmy Awards.

Try it yourself: A Sesame Street Muppet for the next generation of viewers (Sesame Street Elmo plush on Amazon)

Sources: Broadcasting, 10 November 1969, ''Sesame Street' begins series with new grant' (worldradiohistory.com); Sesame Workshop: Our mission and history; Wikipedia: Sesame Street

HBO and the birth of pay cable (8 November 1972) (8 November 1972, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)

Charles Dolan, who had wired lower Manhattan with Sterling Manhattan Cable, proposed a commercial-free channel of films and sports, and Time Inc. funded it. Home Box Office launched at 7:30 p.m. on 8 November 1972 on the Teleservice cable system in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with a New York Rangers hockey game and the film Sometimes a Great Notion. In September 1975 it went national by satellite, the first channel to do so.

How it began: Time Inc.'s board approved Dolan's 'Green Channel' on 2 November 1971 with a $150,000 development grant; Dolan had earlier signed Madison Square Garden for Knicks and Rangers games on cable.

How it ended: Time Inc. bought Dolan out in 1973, and he used the money to start Cablevision. HBO's 1975 move to satellite delivery showed later cable networks how to reach the whole country.

• Two days before launch, Broadcasting reported that Madison Square Garden had granted cable rights outside New York City to Sterling, 47 percent owned by Time-Life Cable, for about 200 sports and special events.
• Broadcasters fought pay cable hard, warning it would 'siphon' movies and sports away from free TV.
• One name proposed before launch was 'Sterling Cable Network'.

Try it yourself: A streaming box, the way most people now get HBO and its successors (Apple TV 4K streaming media player on Amazon)

Sources: Broadcasting, 6 November 1972, pay-cable comments and Madison Square Garden-Sterling deal (worldradiohistory.com); Syndeo Institute Cable Hall of Fame: Charles Dolan; Syndeo Institute Cable Hall of Fame: Gerald Levin; Wikipedia: HBO

Sony Betamax (1975) (Japan 10 May 1975; US later in 1975)

Betamax was Sony's half-inch home videocassette format, launched in Japan on 10 May 1975 and in the United States later that year. Its first US model, the LV-1901, was a wooden console with a 19-inch Trinitron and the recorder built in. Early tapes held only one hour, which proved fatal: JVC's VHS held two. A slower Beta II speed later doubled running time to two hours, but VHS had already taken the lead.

How it was made: Sony offered the format to JVC, which declined and built VHS. Sony at first resisted licensing Beta widely, while JVC licensed VHS freely.

Where it is now: Sony began selling VHS machines in 1988, made its last Betamax recorders in August 2002 and stopped making blank tapes in March 2016. Its professional cousin, Betacam, became the standard for TV news cameras.

• In Britain, Betamax held about a quarter of the market in 1981 but only 7.5 percent by 1986.
• Sony's PCM adaptor used Betamax recorders to store early digital audio.
• UK buyers got Betamax about two years after the US, and only as stand-alone set-top units.

Try it yourself: A video capture device: with a working Betamax or VHS deck, it copies old home tapes to a computer (VHS to digital converter on Amazon)

Sources: Science Museum Group: Sony LV-1901D Trinitron console with Betamax recorder; ETHW (IEEE): Milestone, Development of VHS, 1976 (Beta SL-6300, 1975); Wikipedia: Betamax

JVC VHS and the HR-3300 (1976) (Unveiled 9 September 1976; on sale 31 October 1976)

A team at JVC's Yokohama plant led by Shizuo Takano and Yuma Shiraishi designed VHS (Video Home System) to record two hours, double Betamax's one. JVC unveiled the HR-3300 recorder on 9 September 1976, and it went on sale in Japan on 31 October. RCA brought VHS to the United States in 1977. Because JVC licensed the format to many makers, VHS machines got cheaper fast and won the format war with Betamax.

How it was made: The team set out to beat the one-hour recording limit of the earlier U-format and Beta recorders.

Where it is now: VHS became the global standard for home recording and film rental for two decades. Funai, the last maker, stopped producing VHS machines in July 2016, and the format now survives in attics and digitizing services.

• The HR-3300 in the Science Museum Group collection is described as the first VHS video cassette recorder.
• The first VHS recorder sold in the US, RCA's VBT200 of 23 August 1977, was designed by Matsushita and could record four hours in long-play mode.
• In 2005, 94.5 million Americans still owned a VHS recorder.

Try it yourself: A capture device for turning family VHS tapes into files (USB video capture VHS to digital on Amazon)

Sources: Science Museum Group: JVC HR-3300 VHS video recorder, 1976; ETHW (IEEE): Milestone, Development of VHS, a World Standard for Home Video Recording, 1976; Wikipedia: VHS

CNN goes on the air (1980) (1 June 1980)

Cable News Network launched on 1 June 1980 as the first television channel to carry news around the clock and the first all-news channel in the United States. It rode the same cable-and-satellite system that Turner had already used to send his Atlanta station, Superstation TBS, across the country. The idea that news could fill every hour changed what viewers expected from television, and rival channels copied it within a few years.

How it began: Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld founded the network. Turner gave a short dedication from a podium, then the husband-and-wife team David Walker and Lois Hart anchored the first newscast.

How it ended: CNN made its name on 16 January 1991, reporting live from Baghdad's al-Rashid Hotel as the Gulf War air raids began, with Bernard Shaw, John Holliman and Peter Arnett on the air. It is still broadcasting, with bureaus around the world.

• The satellite CNN was meant to use, RCA's Satcom 3, was lost after its launch on 7 December 1979; Turner sued, and a consent order let CNN start on time using a transponder on Satcom 1.
• The first top story was President Carter arriving in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to visit civil-rights leader Vernon Jordan, who had been shot days earlier.
• CNN keeps a one-minute video of a band playing the hymn 'Nearer, My God, to Thee', to be aired if the world is about to end; a former intern made it public in 2015.

Sources: Who Built America?: CNN coverage of the first night of the Gulf War (CNN Prime News, 16 January 1991); Georgia Historical Society: CNN historical marker; Mental Floss: A brief history of CNN's first day on the air; Boston Globe: CNN's 'doomsday video' surfaces, former intern says (8 January 2015); Wikipedia: History of CNN

MTV launches (1981) (1 August 1981, 12:01 a.m.)

MTV, Music Television, began broadcasting on 1 August 1981 under Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment. It played music videos introduced by young hosts called VJs, which made the television set the place where pop records were launched. Within two years a hit could depend on how often MTV played its video.

How it began: Warner Cable executive John Lack spoke the first words, 'Ladies and gentlemen, rock 'n' roll', over footage of the Apollo moon landing with an MTV flag on the lunar surface. The Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' played first, then Pat Benatar's 'You Better Run'.

How it ended: MTV is still on the air. It reached a peak of about 99 million US pay-TV homes in 2011 and about 67 million by November 2023.

• The first five VJs were Alan Hunter, Martha Quinn, JJ Jackson, Nina Blackwood and Mark Goodman.
• Cable operators were slow to carry the channel, so in 1982 MTV ran 'I Want My MTV!' ads, modelled on a 1950s cereal commercial, in which Mick Jagger, Pat Benatar and other stars urged viewers to phone their cable company.
• Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' entered heavy rotation only in late March 1983, after the song had reached number one, one week before MTV premiered 'Beat It'.

Try it yourself: I Want My MTV, the oral history of the channel's first decade (I Want My MTV Craig Marks Rob Tannenbaum book on Amazon)

Sources: Internet Archive: MTV, The First Four Hours (VHS recording, 1 August 1981); Maine Public / XPN: The first 100 videos played on MTV; Wikipedia: MTV

Sony Watchman FD-210 (1982) (1982 (Japan); 1984 (Europe and North America))

The Watchman was Sony's line of pocket televisions, named after its Walkman cassette players. The first model, the FD-210 (sold as the FD-200 in Japan), had a black-and-white picture tube with a 2-inch screen and weighed about 650 grams. It cost 54,800 yen in Japan and reached Europe and North America in 1984. It showed that a cathode-ray tube, the heaviest part of any TV, could be squeezed into a pocket.

How it was made: Sony's engineers mounted the electron gun alongside the screen, firing almost parallel to the glass, so the tube could be made thin. The screen had a slight curve, although Sony marketed it as flat.

Where it is now: Sony made more than 65 Watchman models before ending the line in 2000. Because broadcasting has gone digital, most of them can no longer pick up live TV without a converter box.

• Sony's US patent 4,451,756, filed in November 1981, describes a flat cathode-ray tube with the electron gun mounted alongside the screen and firing parallel to it.
• The FD-45 of 1986 was water-resistant, and the FD-30 of 1984 added an AM/FM stereo radio.
• Colour arrived with LCD screens: the FDL-310 of 1990 had a colour LCD, while the FD-280/285 (1990-1994) was the last black-and-white tube Watchman.

Try it yourself: A battery portable TV with a digital tuner, the Watchman idea that still works on today's signals (portable digital TV ATSC tuner rechargeable on Amazon)

Sources: Google Patents: US4451756A, Flat cathode ray tube (Sony, filed 1981); Gizmodo: I Miss the Sony Watchman (2020); Wikipedia: Sony Watchman

The Betamax case: Sony v. Universal (1984) (17 January 1984)

Universal Studios and Disney sued Sony in 1976, arguing that its Betamax video recorder helped people infringe copyright. After eight years in the courts, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for Sony on 17 January 1984. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that private, non-commercial 'time-shifting', recording a show to watch later, is fair use. Because the machine had substantial non-infringing uses, selling it was not contributory infringement. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the dissent, joined by Justices Marshall, Powell and Rehnquist.

• The case was argued twice: first on 18 January 1983 and again on 3 October 1983.
• Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood testified for the VCR makers in support of home taping, and the Court quoted his testimony in its opinion.
• Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, had compared the VCR to the Boston Strangler.

Sources: Cornell LII: Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984), full opinion; Mental Floss: How Mister Rogers Saved the VCR; Euronews: The court case that changed home media (2023); Wikipedia: Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios

Nintendo Entertainment System (1985) (18 October 1985 (New York test launch))

The NES was the Western version of Nintendo's Famicom, which had gone on sale in Japan on 15 July 1983 for 14,800 yen. It arrived after the US games industry had collapsed in 1983 under a glut of poor consoles and games. It plugged into the TV aerial socket through an RF lead, with composite video on the original model, and turned the family set into a games screen again. Nintendo sold 61.91 million of them.

How it was made: Nintendo test-launched the NES in New York City on 18 October 1985, then Los Angeles in February 1986, and nationwide on 27 September 1986. It shipped with a light gun, the Zapper, and an optional robot, R.O.B., both meant to make the system look sophisticated rather than like a toy.

Where it is now: Nintendo stopped making the NES in North America and Europe on 14 August 1995; the Japanese Famicom lasted until 25 September 2003. Original consoles now sit in museum collections, including the Science Museum in London.

• Western NES consoles contain the 10NES lockout chip, which blocks cartridges Nintendo had not approved; a faulty connection makes it reset the console about once a second, the famous blinking red light.
• The Japanese Famicom had no lockout hardware at all.
• The Computer History Museum holds a 1985 NES controller, model NES-004, made in Japan.

Try it yourself: A composite-to-HDMI converter, so an old console can drive a modern TV (composite to HDMI converter retro game console on Amazon)

Sources: Computer History Museum: Nintendo Entertainment System controller, 1985 (object record); Science Museum Group: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), 1986; Wikipedia: Nintendo Entertainment System

Sony gives in: VHS wins the tape war (1988) (January 1988)

Sony launched Betamax in 1975, and JVC answered with VHS in 1976. Betamax was often judged the sharper picture, but VHS could record two hours on a tape when Beta managed one, long enough for a film. By 1987 VHS held about 90 percent of the US VCR market, and in January 1988 Sony said it would start producing VHS machines that April, while still making Betamax. The Christian Science Monitor reported that Betamax's worldwide share had fallen below 10 percent.

• Beta's share of US recorder sales had already fallen to 25 percent by 1981.
• Korean makers Samsung and GoldStar had pushed the price of a VHS recorder below 200 dollars by 1986.
• At its original speed Betamax gave about 250 lines of horizontal detail against 240 for VHS, but the slower Beta II speed needed for two-hour tapes cut it to 240.

Try it yourself: A VHS-to-digital converter, for the family tapes in the attic (VHS to digital converter on Amazon)

Sources: Christian Science Monitor: Sony's adoption of VHS shows it has learned marketing lessons (14 January 1988); IEEE Milestone: Development of VHS, a World Standard for Home Video Recording, 1976; Wikipedia: Videotape format war

Hi-Vision and MUSE: Japan's analog HDTV (1989) (June 1989 (first satellite HDTV trials))

NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, began researching high-definition television in 1964, starting with experiments on what makes a picture feel real to viewers. Its Hi-Vision system used 1,125 scanning lines, with a wide picture that began at 5:3 and changed to 16:9 in 1989. In June 1989 NHK began the world's first HDTV broadcasting trials by satellite, and commercial Hi-Vision service started in 1991. It proved high definition could work years before the rest of the world had a standard.

How it was made: Most of the studio equipment existed by 1982, when NHK made its first HDTV programme, 'Images for Hi-Vision'. To fit the huge signal into one satellite channel, NHK engineers led by Yuichi Ninomiya devised MUSE, which used sub-sampling and motion compensation to cut a roughly 30 MHz signal to about 8.1 MHz.

Where it is now: MUSE was analog, and the world moved to digital. NHK's satellite channel carried it until 30 September 2007, and Japan switched to its digital ISDB system.

• Parts of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics were recorded in HDTV by NHK.
• Europe never adopted MUSE, partly because it was a 60 Hz system and European television ran at 50 Hz.
• Ninomiya held 176 patents; his European patent for the subsampling system, filed with colleagues in 1984, was granted in 1989.

Sources: European Patent Office: EP 0 146 713, Multiplex subsampling transmission system for a high definition color television picture signal (NHK; Ninomiya et al.); IEEE Milestone: The High Definition Television System, 1964-1989; ETHW: Yuichi Ninomiya; Wikipedia: Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding

The FCC adopts the ATSC digital TV standard (1996) (24 December 1996)

In 1993 the companies competing to build American HDTV, AT&T, General Instrument, MIT, Philips, the David Sarnoff Research Center, Thomson and Zenith, joined forces as the 'Grand Alliance'. Their combined system became the ATSC A/53 standard of 1995: MPEG-2 video, Dolby AC-3 surround sound and 8-VSB modulation carrying 19.38 megabits per second in an ordinary 6 MHz channel. The FCC adopted it on 24 December 1996, effective 27 May 1997.

• The adoption followed a late-November 1996 deal between broadcasters, computer companies and TV makers: the FCC kept the standard but did not mandate its table of picture formats.
• ATSC 1.0 allows 18 picture formats across three families: 480, 720 and 1080 lines.
• The Grand Alliance received a Primetime Engineering Emmy in 1997.

Try it yourself: An over-the-air HD antenna: free ATSC broadcasts, the standard set in 1996 (indoor HD TV antenna on Amazon)

Sources: Federal Register, 25 March 1997: FCC 96-493, TV Transmission Standards (Fourth Report and Order); TV Tech: The ATSC standard (Michael Robin, 2006); Wikipedia: Grand Alliance (HDTV)

The DVD (1996) (1 November 1996 (Japan); 24 March 1997 (US))

The DVD put a feature film, in digital video with surround sound, on a disc the size of a CD. A single-layer disc holds 4.7 GB and a single-sided dual-layer disc 8.5 GB. It launched in Japan in November 1996 and in seven US test markets on 24 March 1997, with about 32 titles including Twister. DVD players outsold VCRs in the US for the first time in 2001.

How it was made: Philips and Sony backed one format (MMCD) and Toshiba another (Super Density). In 1995 a group of computer companies threatened to boycott both, and the camps agreed on a single format on 15 September 1995. Toshiba's SD-3000, sold in November 1996, is credited as the world's first home DVD player.

Where it is now: DVD sales peaked around 2005 and fell sharply as streaming arrived. The disc lives on beside Blu-ray, and Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science listed the SD-3000 as Future Technology Heritage in 2020.

• The EFMPlus coding that Philips and Sony insisted on cut the planned capacity from 5 GB to 4.7 GB.
• Computer companies objected to the name 'digital video disc', so it became 'digital versatile disc', and the letters DVD stayed the same.
• On 15 June 2003, weekly DVD rentals in the US passed VHS rentals for the first time.

Try it yourself: A Sony Blu-ray player, which still plays and upscales an old DVD collection (Sony BDP-S6700 Blu-ray player on Amazon)

Sources: Toshiba press release (Japanese): SD-3000 and DVD MPEG-2 decoder LSI registered as Future Technology Heritage, 15 September 2020; AV Watch (Impress): World's first home DVD player, Toshiba SD-3000, named Future Technology Heritage; Wikipedia: DVD

The first big plasma TVs (Fujitsu, 1997) (1996-1997)

A plasma panel lights each sub-pixel with a tiny cell of glowing gas, so it needs no picture tube and can be only a few inches deep. In 1997 Fujitsu introduced what IEEE Spectrum calls the first commercial full-colour plasma display: 42 inches across, about 75 mm thick and about 18 kg. Its US list price is reported as either 17,500 or 20,000 dollars, and it was aimed at businesses rather than homes. Philips sold a 42-inch plasma set built on Fujitsu panels the same year for 14,999 dollars.

How it was made: Donald Bitzer, H. Gene Slottow and Robert Willson invented the plasma display at the University of Illinois in 1964 for the PLATO computer system. Fujitsu's team under Tsutae Shinoda commercialised a practical 21-inch colour plasma TV in 1993, and Fujitsu began mass-producing 42-inch panels at its Miyazaki plant in October 1996.

Where it is now: Plasma shipments peaked at about 18.2 million units in 2010, then LCDs won on price. Panasonic, LG and Samsung all stopped making plasma TVs by the end of 2014.

• Fujitsu's Miyazaki line started at about 3,000 panels a month and was rated for 10,000; the plant had been a semiconductor test site.
• Fujitsu set itself a goal of selling large plasma TVs for 10,000 yen per inch by 2000.
• The IEEE dedicated a milestone plaque to Fujitsu's 1993 colour plasma TV in 2025.

Try it yourself: A TV wall mount: hanging the set on the wall was the plasma promise (full motion TV wall mount on Amazon)

Sources: Fujitsu press release: Fujitsu is World's First to Mass Produce 42-inch Color Plasma Display Panels (28 November 1996); IEEE Spectrum: The Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, Fujitsu Plasma TV; IEEE Milestone: Color Plasma Television, 1993; Wikipedia: Plasma display

TiVo, the first DVRs (1999) (31 March 1999)

TiVo recorded television onto a hard disk instead of tape, so viewers could pause and rewind a live broadcast and record shows by name from an on-screen guide. The first model stored 14 hours and cost 499 dollars, plus a service fee of 9.95 dollars a month or 199 dollars for life. It and its rival ReplayTV, launched almost at the same time, were the first two DVRs. TiVo later licensed its technology to about 60 cable and IPTV providers.

How it was made: Jim Barton and Mike Ramsay started the company as Teleworld before renaming it TiVo. Engineers code-named the first box 'Blue Moon' because its ship date, 31 March 1999, fell on a blue moon.

Where it is now: The box never became a mass-market hit: TiVo sold 48,000 in 1999 and direct subscribers peaked at 1.7 million in 2008. Its patents earned an estimated 1.6 billion dollars through 2013; TiVo merged with Xperi in 2020 and stopped selling DVR hardware on 1 October 2025.

• TiVo's patent, 'Multimedia time warping system', was filed on 30 July 1998 and granted on 15 May 2001.
• A 30-hour model with two hard drives cost 999 dollars.
• The idea grew out of a home-network project; a remark about pausing TV for a bathroom break steered the founders to a hard-drive recorder.

Try it yourself: A universal remote, to run the TV, soundbar and streamer from one button pad (universal remote control smart TV streaming on Amazon)

Sources: Google Patents: US6233389B1, Multimedia time warping system (TiVo); IEEE Spectrum: The Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, TiVo; Wikipedia: TiVo

Netflix starts streaming, and the cord-cutting era begins (2007) (16 January 2007)

On 16 January 2007 Netflix began letting subscribers watch films on their PCs at no extra charge, rolled out over six months. It started with about 1,000 movies and TV series, against more than 70,000 titles on disc, and viewing hours were tied to the plan: 6 hours a month for 5.99 dollars, 18 hours for 17.99. The service needed at least 1 megabit per second, and 3 megabits for DVD quality. Once streaming reached the TV set through boxes, sticks and smart TVs, viewers began cancelling cable.

• US pay-TV subscriptions peaked at about 101 million households in 2011; 2013 brought the first year-over-year decline, and by 2022 cable and satellite served only about 48 percent of TV households.
• In May 2025, Nielsen measured streaming at 44.8 percent of US TV viewing, more than broadcast (20.1 percent) and cable (24.1 percent) combined for the first time.
• YouTube alone took 12.5 percent of all US TV viewing that month, the highest share Nielsen had recorded for a single streamer.

Try it yourself: The Fire TV Stick 4K: streaming apps on any HDMI TV (Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K on Amazon)

Sources: Netflix press release: Netflix Offers Subscribers the Option of Instantly Watching Movies on Their PCs (16 January 2007); Nielsen: Streaming reaches historic TV milestone, eclipses combined broadcast and cable viewing (17 June 2025); Wikipedia: Cord-cutting

LCD overtakes the picture tube (2007) (October-December 2007)

The research firm DisplaySearch counted 28.5 million LCD TVs shipped worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2007, 47 percent of the market, against 46 percent for CRTs. Less than two years earlier, in the first quarter of 2006, picture tubes had still made up 77 percent of TV shipments. LCD won because it came in every size from under 20 inches upward, while plasma then started at about 32 inches. About 200 million TVs of all kinds shipped in 2007, 79.3 million of them LCD.

• George Heilmeier's team at RCA built the first working liquid-crystal displays in the 1960s, using a 'dynamic scattering' effect later replaced by the twisted nematic effect patented in 1970-71.
• Sharp demonstrated a 14-inch full-colour, full-motion TFT-LCD in 1988, which helped convince Japanese industry that LCD could replace the tube.
• Many current LCD TVs use mini-LED backlights with more than a thousand dimming zones to deepen their blacks.

Try it yourself: Hisense U8: a modern mini-LED LCD, the descendant of 2007's flat panels (Hisense U8 mini-LED TV on Amazon)

Sources: DisplaySearch release, reproduced by Widescreen Review: Q4'07 worldwide LCD TV shipments surpass CRTs for first time (19 February 2008); The Register: Global LCD TV sales overtake CRT (22 February 2008); Wikipedia: Liquid-crystal display

Roku and the Netflix Player (2008) (20 May 2008)

On 20 May 2008 Netflix and Roku launched the Netflix Player by Roku, a small box that streamed Netflix to a television for a one-time 99.99 dollars with no extra fees. At launch it could stream only about a tenth of Netflix's library of more than 100,000 titles. The box updated its own software automatically, and its simple remote was later copied by Amazon and Google. Roku went on to lead US streaming-device sales.

How it began: Anthony Wood, who had earlier founded the DVR maker ReplayTV, founded Roku in 2002. In 2007 his team built a streaming box for Netflix itself, but Reed Hastings cancelled the project weeks before launch and spun the company off, and Roku sold the box under its own name.

How it ended: Roku released its Streaming Stick in January 2012 and its first Roku-branded TVs, built by makers such as TCL and Hisense, in late 2014. In February 2025 it reported more than 90 million streaming households.

• The first Roku box had 256 MB of memory and streamed in standard definition and 720p HD.
• The box was about the size of a paperback book and connected by Wi-Fi or Ethernet, with HDMI, component, S-Video and composite outputs.
• When it launched, its competitors included the 229-dollar Apple TV, and Netflix had 8.2 million subscribers.

Try it yourself: Roku Streaming Stick 4K, the descendant of the 2008 Netflix box (Roku Streaming Stick 4K on Amazon)

Sources: Roku press document: About The Netflix Player by Roku (May 2008, PDF); Fortune: Netflix unveils device that lets users stream movies (20 May 2008); IEEE Spectrum: The Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, Roku DVP N1000; Wikipedia: Roku

America switches off analog TV (2009) (12 June 2009)

Congress first set the end of full-power analog broadcasting for 17 February 2009. With millions of homes still unready, the DTV Delay Act, signed by President Obama on 11 February 2009, pushed it back to 12 June. To help, the government offered every household up to two 40-dollar coupons toward a converter box that let old TVs show digital signals. The freed channels 52-69 had already been auctioned in 2008 for about 20 billion dollars.

• Wilmington, North Carolina, went digital-only first, on 8 September 2008, as an FCC test market.
• By the program's close, households had requested 64.1 million coupons and redeemed almost 34 million of them; the last day to apply was 31 July 2009.
• The FCC's help line took 317,450 calls on the day of the switch.

Sources: Public Law 111-4, DTV Delay Act (11 February 2009), govinfo; TV Tech: Final converter box numbers released (6 August 2009); Wikipedia: Digital television transition in the United States

The 3D TV boom and bust (2010-2017) (2010-2017)

James Cameron's Avatar (2009) persuaded the TV industry that 3D could sell new sets. Most home systems used active shutter glasses synchronised to the screen, or passive polarised glasses, and every viewer needed a pair. Shipments, as counted by DisplaySearch, rose from 2.26 million in 2010 to 41.45 million in 2012. But viewers rarely used it, and the industry turned to 4K and HDR instead.

How it was made: On 10 March 2010, at a New York event, Samsung put its first 3D LED TVs on sale in the US, the 46- and 55-inch C7000, with a starter kit of two pairs of active shutter glasses and a 3D Blu-ray of Monsters vs. Aliens. ESPN launched its ESPN 3D channel on 11 June 2010.

Where it is now: ESPN 3D closed in 2013, and the BBC ended its 3D trial with a Doctor Who anniversary episode on 23 November 2013. Vizio dropped 3D in 2013, Samsung in 2016, and in January 2017 LG and Sony, the last major makers, left it out of their new TVs.

• LG said buyer research showed 3D was not a top buying consideration and that actual use was low, so it shifted its focus to HDR.
• DirecTV cancelled its round-the-clock 3D channel in 2012, a year before ESPN 3D closed.
• Even LG's and Sony's 2017 OLED flagships could not play 3D; 3D Blu-ray owners needed a 2016 or older TV or a projector.

Sources: Samsung release, reproduced by Widescreen Review: Samsung introduces 3D LED HDTV to US market (10 March 2010); Sports Video Group (after CNET): Shambling corpse of 3D TV finally falls down dead (18 January 2017); TechCrunch: 3D TVs are dead (25 January 2017); Wikipedia: 3D television

4K Ultra HD and HDR10 (2012-2015) (2012 (Ultra HD); 2014 (Dolby Vision); 2015 (HDR10))

In August 2012 the ITU published Recommendation BT.2020, the parameters for ultra-high-definition television, including a much wider colour range. That October the US Consumer Electronics Association named 4K sets 'Ultra HD': at least 3,840 by 2,160 pixels, about eight million, four times full HD. High dynamic range followed. Dolby Vision arrived in 2014, and on 27 August 2015 the CEA defined the open HDR10 format: 10-bit colour, the PQ (SMPTE ST 2084) brightness curve, BT.2020 colour and fixed 'static' metadata for the whole film.

How it was made: The CEA's board voted unanimously for the 'Ultra HD' name after consumer research, and required at least one input that could take a native 4K signal rather than only upscaling. HDR10 was a voluntary industry definition for TVs and sources.

Where it is now: HDR10 became the most widespread HDR format, supported by nearly every TV maker and games console. Dolby Vision and HDR10+ add dynamic metadata, adjusting the picture scene by scene, which HDR10 cannot do.

• Dolby Vision allows up to 12-bit colour and a theoretical peak of 10,000 nits, though in 2018 professional reference monitors topped out at 4,000.
• HDR10 is not backward compatible: a standard-dynamic-range TV cannot show an HDR10 signal correctly without conversion.
• HDR10's fixed metadata records the brightest single pixel in the programme (MaxCLL) and the brightest average frame (MaxFALL).

Try it yourself: A certified Ultra High Speed HDMI 2.1 cable for 4K HDR at high frame rates (Ultra High Speed HDMI 2.1 cable 48Gbps on Amazon)

Sources: ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020: Parameters values for ultra-high definition television systems (first version 08/2012); Advanced Television: CEA, 4K becomes Ultra HD (22 October 2012); TV Tech: CEA defines 'HDR Compatible' displays (28 August 2015); Wikipedia: HDR10; Wikipedia: Dolby Vision

LG's 55-inch OLED TV (2013) (3 January 2013 (pre-orders, South Korea))

In an OLED screen each sub-pixel is a thin organic layer that glows when current flows, so there is no backlight and a pixel can switch fully off for true black. Sony sold the first OLED TV, the small XEL-1, in 2007, but LG's 55EM9700 of 2013 was the first at a living-room size. LG used a 'WRGB' design: white OLED sub-pixels with red, green and blue colour filters, plus an unfiltered white sub-pixel for brightness. Pre-orders opened in more than 1,400 LG stores in South Korea for 11 million won, about 10,000 dollars, with deliveries from February.

How it was made: Kodak chemists Ching Tang and Steven Van Slyke published the first practical OLED, a two-layer organic diode, in Applied Physics Letters in September 1987. An early version of LG's set was named Best of Show at CES 2012.

Where it is now: White OLED with colour filters became the usual way to make large OLED TV panels. Its weak points are the light lost in the filters and a higher risk of burn-in than LCD.

• The 55EM9700 was 4 mm thin and weighed less than 10 kg.
• In April 2013 LG announced a curved version, the 55EA9800, at 15 million won, about 13,500 dollars.
• LG's press release called the design a 'Four-Color Pixel system', because the white sub-pixel sits beside the usual red, green and blue.

Try it yourself: LG's OLED evo C-series, the current descendant of the 2013 WRGB OLED (LG OLED evo C5 65 inch TV on Amazon)

Sources: Applied Physics Letters: Tang and VanSlyke, Organic electroluminescent diodes (1987); Engadget, with LG press release: LG 55-inch OLED TV available for pre-order in Korea (January 2013); Engadget: LG will launch the world's first 55-inch curved OLED HDTV (April 2013); Wikipedia: OLED

The end of plasma (2013-2014) (31 October 2013 (Panasonic announcement) to end of 2014)

On 31 October 2013 Panasonic announced it would end plasma panel production in December 2013 and stop its last plasma factory, Amagasaki P4, by the end of March 2014. It blamed falling demand, the rapid spread of large LCD screens and price competition since the 2008 financial crisis, not picture quality. LG and Samsung said they would carry on, but both stopped making plasma TVs in 2014. Pioneer, maker of the admired Kuro sets, had already left plasma in February 2009.

• Panasonic had concentrated plasma production at Amagasaki; two other factories there, P3 and P5, had already been stopped or suspended before the announcement.
• Panasonic had bought Plasmaco, the American firm founded by plasma pioneer Larry Weber, in 1996.
• NBC News noted that Panasonic, Sony and Sharp had all been losing money on TVs and had closed or reorganised factories.

Sources: Panasonic statement 'Regarding the End of Production of Plasma Display Panels', reproduced in full by Home Cinema Choice (31 October 2013); NBC News: Panasonic will stop producing plasma TVs in December (31 October 2013); Wikipedia: Plasma display

TV prices fall 94 percent (1997-2015) (December 1997 to August 2015)

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2015 that its consumer price index for televisions fell 94 percent from December 1997 to August 2015, from 100 to 5.5. Over the same years screens grew from tubes to flat panels and from standard definition to 4K. By 2005 Toshiba was selling a 42-inch plasma TV for 4,500 dollars. The fall has continued into the biggest sizes.

• The BLS index for personal computers fell even faster over the same period, by 96 percent.
• Samsung's first 98-inch TV in 2019 cost 99,000 dollars; in 2024 Samsung offered 98-inch models starting at about 4,000 dollars.
• The average price of TVs 97 inches and larger fell from 6,662 dollars in 2023 to 3,113 dollars in 2024.

Try it yourself: TCL QM7: a large mini-LED TV at a price that would have bought a small tube set in 1997 (TCL QM7 mini-LED TV on Amazon)

Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily: Long-term price trends for computers, TVs, and related items (13 October 2015); IEEE Spectrum: The Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, Fujitsu Plasma TV; Wikipedia: Television set

Samsung QLED: quantum dots in an LCD (2017) (4 January 2017)

Quantum dots are semiconductor nanocrystals that glow a single pure colour when light hits them. In a QLED TV, a blue LED backlight shines through a quantum-dot layer that converts it into purer red and green before it reaches the LCD's shutters and colour filters, giving brighter, more saturated colour. Unlike OLED, the pixels do not make their own light, so black levels still depend on how well the backlight can be dimmed. On 4 January 2017 Samsung announced its Q9, Q8 and Q7 series with a new 'metal' quantum-dot material and claimed 1,500 to 2,000 nits peak brightness.

How it was made: Sony shipped the first TVs with quantum-dot enhancement in 2013 under its Triluminos name. Samsung rebranded its quantum-dot sets as 'QLED' in 2017, and with Hisense and TCL formed a QLED Alliance to promote the label.

Where it is now: QLED is now a common marketing name for quantum-dot LCDs from several brands, many with mini-LED backlights. True electroluminescent quantum-dot screens, where each dot is its own light source, existed only in laboratories as of mid-2025.

• The 2017 QLED sets were edge-lit, which made them thin but hurt black levels; the top Q9 had LEDs along both sides.
• Newer quantum dots use indium instead of toxic cadmium, partly because of EU RoHS restrictions.
• In 2024 tests commissioned by the Korean firm Hansol suggested some TCL 'QLED' models lacked real quantum dots, though Hansol has ties to a TCL competitor.

Try it yourself: Samsung's entry QLED line: an LED-backlit LCD with a quantum-dot colour layer (Samsung QLED 4K TV Q60 on Amazon)

Sources: Samsung Newsroom (Germany): Samsung Electronics Ushers In a New Era in Home Entertainment with QLED TV Ahead of CES 2017 (4 January 2017); Big Picture Big Sound: What is Samsung's QLED TV? Something New or Just Another LCD TV? (2017); CE Pro: What is QLED? Exploring Samsung's Quantum Dot Tech (2017); Wikipedia: Quantum dot display

ATSC 3.0, 'NextGen TV' (2017-2020) (16 November 2017 (FCC approval); May 2020 (Las Vegas launch))

ATSC 3.0 replaces the 1996 digital standard with one built on internet protocols and OFDM modulation, carrying roughly 1 to 57 megabits per second in a 6 MHz channel. It can deliver 4K at up to 120 frames per second, HDR, new audio formats and mobile reception. The FCC authorised it on 16 November 2017 on a voluntary basis, provided stations kept an ATSC 1.0 simulcast, usually through a partner 'host' station. Old TVs cannot decode it; viewers need a TV or box with a NextGen tuner, though ordinary antennas still work.

• South Korea got there first, launching full-time ATSC 3.0 service on 31 May 2017.
• The FCC required the 1.0 simulcast to carry 'substantially similar' programming for five years from March 2018 unless extended; Las Vegas stations started permanent 3.0 signals in May 2020.
• Big broadcast groups began encrypting ATSC 3.0 signals in 2023, which the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others criticised for limiting free-to-air viewing and recording.

Try it yourself: An ATSC 3.0 network tuner, so an existing antenna can feed NextGen TV to your devices (SiliconDust HDHomeRun FLEX 4K ATSC 3.0 tuner on Amazon)

Sources: Federal Register, 2 February 2018: FCC 17-158, Authorizing Permissive Use of the 'Next Generation' Broadcast Television Standard; Benton Institute: FCC Authorizes Next Gen TV Broadcast Standard (16 November 2017); Wikipedia: ATSC 3.0

Samsung 'The Wall' and MicroLED (2018) (January 2018 (CES, Las Vegas))

MicroLED screens are made of millions of microscopic inorganic LEDs, one per sub-pixel, so like OLED they light themselves, but without OLED's organic materials and with less risk of burn-in. At its CES 'First Look' event in January 2018, Samsung unveiled The Wall, a 146-inch modular MicroLED display whose size and shape could be configured. It needed no backlight or colour filters, and Samsung claimed 2,000 nits of peak brightness. It showed what could come after both LCD and OLED.

How it was made: Hongxing Jiang and Jingyu Lin's research group introduced microLED technology in 2000. Sony demonstrated microLED products in 2012, but they were extremely expensive.

Where it is now: The first consumer MicroLED TVs went on sale in 2021 and remain very expensive to make. Every tiny LED must be placed, tested and replaced if faulty, and Apple reportedly abandoned its own microLED effort as unworkable.

• Samsung billed The Wall as the world's first modular MicroLED TV.
• Transferring the LEDs for a single smartphone-sized microLED screen can take as long as 18 days.
• MicroLEDs are also being developed for optical data links, with reported speeds of up to 1 terabit per second.

Try it yourself: A Dolby Atmos soundbar: big pictures deserve better sound than built-in speakers (Dolby Atmos soundbar for large TV on Amazon)

Sources: Samsung Newsroom (Germany): CES 2018, Samsung presents The Wall, the first modular 146-inch MicroLED TV (8 January 2018); MobileSyrup: Samsung shows off 146-inch modular UHD TV at CES 2018; Wikipedia: MicroLED

QD-OLED: blue OLED plus quantum dots (2022) (January 2022 (CES); on sale mid-2022)

A QD-OLED panel uses a blue OLED layer as its light source and converts part of that blue light into red and green with quantum dots, instead of using white OLED behind colour filters as LG's panels do. Like any OLED it can switch pixels fully off, and it delivers brighter, more saturated colour than earlier OLEDs. At CES in January 2022 Sony announced the Bravia XR A95K, billed as the first QD-OLED TV, with a panel from Samsung Display, while Sony's other OLEDs used LG Display panels. In the US the 55-inch listed at 2,999.99 dollars and the 65-inch at 3,999.99, with pre-orders from June 2022.

How it was made: In October 2019 Samsung Display said it would invest 13 trillion won in QD-OLED by 2025. It converted its Q1 line at Asan, which had made LCD panels, and marked the start of QD-OLED production at a ceremony there in late November 2021.

Where it is now: QD-OLED is now one of the two main large OLED panel types, alongside LG Display's white OLED, used in both TVs and computer monitors.

• Early production yields were reported at only about 50 percent, which limited output to about 1 million panels a year.
• Samsung's own QD-OLED set, the S95B, opened for US pre-orders on 17 March 2022 at 2,199 dollars for the 55-inch, months before the A95K.
• Sony's A95K stand could be set in a 'front' position or a 'back' position that lets the set sit close to a wall.

Try it yourself: Samsung's S90-series OLED; check the listing, as Samsung has used both QD-OLED and LG white-OLED panels depending on size (Samsung S90F OLED TV 65 inch on Amazon)

Sources: Sony Electronics release, reproduced by Widescreen Review: Pricing and availability for 2022 BRAVIA XR lineup (2 May 2022); XDA Developers: Sony unveils 2022 Bravia XR TV lineup with Mini LED models and a QD-OLED TV (4 January 2022); The Korea Times: Samsung pursuing 'dual-track' approach in OLED business (1 December 2021); Gizmodo: Samsung's first QD-OLED TV has arrived (17 March 2022); Wikipedia: Quantum dot display